31–40 of 43 posts
The charity sector looks forward to a Bono-led recovery RICH PARADISE, Bahamas, Monday (UNN) — The (RED) anti-AIDS marketing initiative has announced its first annual results. The initiative, fronted by Bono, seeks to promote a "co-philanthropy" model, wherein companies can do good works by selling products they were going to sell anyway, but with a little red bit on to show how much they care. Really. They care. "We…
"Aluminium case with tens of thousands of individual perforations" sounds so much fancier than "metal screen".
Metal screens are just stamped or rolled sheet metal, while these perforations are made by a CNC mill from the same piece of aluminium as the rest of the body. Might not mean anything to a layperson but watching a CNC mill make thousands of precision perforations would be quite a sight.
> 85 days and more than 735 hours > more than 550 models and 1,000 prototype parts were made and tested... 55 engineers worked on the process. Uhh... I think they spent more developing this than what it will fetch. Wouldn't it have been better to just donate the money? A 500k donation at the expense of that many resources...
Do you really think they didn't consider this when making the device? Obviously, they gauged interest and determined that they'll make more money for charity by selling it.
"Aluminium case with tens of thousands of individual perforations" sounds so much fancier than "metal screen".
Metal screens are just stamped or rolled sheet metal, while these perforations are made by a CNC mill from the same piece of aluminium as the rest of the body. Might not mean anything to a layperson but watching a CNC mill make thousands of precision perforations would be quite a sight.
-- source: leica owner
The Leica M has had pretty much the same dimensions and design for since the 50s (save to major departures the Leica CL and the Leica M5). Note that I am referring to the analog film version and not the modern digital M8 and later incarnations design, along with the Fender Stratocaster are the closest thing to perfection anyone has come up with.
The Stratocaster is a discussion for another time. In the case of the Leica, it is the best design because it distills the essence of the photographic expression and builds the product around that. The controls are simple. You have a shutter speed dial, a film crank, a shots taken indicator. Aperture control is on the lens barrel. Any photographer can pick up a Leica M and know how it works intuitively. The controls fall right where they should. Its been 50 years, and no one really has come up with a better interface to take a picture.
This design throughs all of that out the window. From the looks of the picture, it doesn't look very comfortable to hold. It seems to rounded, and the "cheese greater" design is just asking for dust/environmental problems. A well used Leica looks even more desirable with age, this would just look hideous. This design just lost all of the elegance that 50 years of incremental design bestowed on the Leica M and turned it into something that looks like a Braun product.
Then lets move to the usability -- whats with the recessed dials??? the whole point of the dial placement ABOVE the top plate is so that the photographer can operate all the controls via his thumb without taking his mind away from the act of taking a picture. This completely violates that principle. Not to mention all the ergonomic evolution the engineers at Leica spent so much time agonizing over.
Don't get me wrong, yes I do love the Leica M. I am not a zealot by any chance. I don't claim they do everything but what they do -- they have perfected the design. And here they just through all of that out the window.
If the goal was to make an advancement on the design, I would say take a close look at the Fuji X100s. It has taken the Leica ethic and bridged it beautifully with the modern digital age. In fact I will say the Fuji X100s is the first classic of the digital age.
It is expected to fetch between $500,000 (£312,000)
and $750,000.
The special edition Leica M camera features an anodised
aluminium case with tens of thousands of individual
perforations.
The camera took 85 days and more than 735 hours
to manufacture.
During that time more than 550 models and 1,000
prototype parts were made and tested; 55 engineers
worked on the process.
But hey, it's for charity, so the Madison Avenue bullshit artistry is (almost) excusable.
Looking at that, without reading the text, I thought immediately that it looked like Marc Newson's work rather than Jony Ive's. Then I read the text: > Apple's feted design chief teamed up with industrial designer Marc Newson I would say that Marc did most of this, and Jony either just created the collaboration and put his name to it, or his touch was reasonably light. The only part that really looks like Ive's stamp…
I still think there are some question marks about his software design skills as some of the things in iOS7 is very badly thought out such as the new date pickers.
I suppose people that buy these will just put them on a shelf, but if not, those perforations are going to fill with garbage.
